Currently Reading: 'Animal' by Erica Fudge

'Whether you love them, live with them, eat them, or wear them, Animal will make you look at your fellow creatures in a radically new way'

I finally managed to get this book out of the university library (after paying the rather hefty late returns fine -_-') and am really enjoying it. Written in a lively, conversational, yet discerning manner, this book is incredibly engaging, making the reader question basic assumptions about animals considered 'natural' in today's society when actually they have only been naturalised. They were very different in the past, and will change again in the future (for the better I hope!)

I am currently halfway through the second of three chapters, 'Real and Symbolic: Questions of Difference' and have got, after a section on 'Babe', to the topic of the animal in Enlightenment philosophy and new science ^.^

A particularly nagging question this book has raised for me is: How would we write a story truly about 'them' and not 'us'? How could we not anthropomorphise if we are humans and cannot help but see things from a human perspective? Of course, I am not saying anthropomorphism is a bad thing, after all, it is mostly because we attribute human emotions and traits to animals that many are saved from starvation, slaughter and whatnot. Yet it is interesting to speculate about the alternatives, if any...